Tag: making waves

It’s been a huge year for the Making Waves community: the extended team, composers and listeners. Thank you so much for joining us in 2017 as we venture through monthly playlists and our first foray into podcasting.

We’ve been delighted to continue to put the spotlight on new faces this year. Having featured over 150 composers in 3 years worth of playlists (time flies!), it sometimes feels like the more composers we get to know, the more there are to discover. And that’s a good thing! The new music community is so active, vibrant and dedicated, and it’s fantastic to see so much creativity taking place in sound around Australia, and continue to be introduced to new work.

Along with the playlists the Making Conversation: Australian Composers’ Podcast was released. We are super proud to have brought this project to fruition, along with 10 interviewers, audio and podcast enthusiasts. Massive thanks to the Making Conversation team and to the composers interviewed for a total of 29 episodes in this season. We hope to continue the series in the future, and we encourage you to check out the series if you haven’t already, with audio and video episodes available here on the website for streaming or via your favourite podcast services or YouTube.

We must give a massive Thank You also to the new faces who have joined the Making Waves team. Project founders Lisa Cheney (VIC) and Peggy Polias (NSW) are so grateful to be joined on this voluntary project by Mark Wolf (QLD) and Marlene Radice (VIC), who have each completed 6 month internships in 2017 and are staying on to continue promoting composers and their music. Meanwhile, in November 2017 we are delighted to welcome Alexis Weaver (NSW) and Michelle Nguyen (VIC) who have both commenced internships. We look forward to showing them the ropes, culminating with a playlist each in 2018.

If you like what Making Waves are doing, you can show your support by: liking, following and leaving comments and feedback at all our social channels and liking, following and leaving feedback at all the social channels of featured composers when you see new or familiar faces pop up in your feed.

We also have a growing line of merchandise. We’ve updated the Featured Composer tote bag for 2015-17 and have also introduced a Making Conversation podcast logo tote bag. You might like to show off your new music savvy around town by purchasing one of these:

New 2017 Making Conversation Logo Tote Bag

A$35.00

2015-17 Featured Composers Tote Bag (White)

Black text on white bag.

A$35.00

2015-17 Featured composer tote bag (Black)

White text on black bag.

A$35.00

If tote bags aren’t your thing, we’ve added t-shirts, coffee mugs, notebooks and more to the mix over at our new RedBubble shop. We also recently updated the Favourite Things collection with some audio/tech picks. A portion of all sales supports the running costs of the Making Waves project. You can also leave a one-off or regular donation and read more about supporting the project here.

Now, for the end of year playlist. In 2017 we featured 75 tracks on Soundcloud (totalling 8hrs 27min), 10 tracks on Spotify (1hr) and 6 tracks on YouTube (41min). We’ve collected all of these here for your summer holiday listening until we release the first playlist for 2018 on 1 February at 9amAEST. Whether you pick through your favourites, catch up on the year of composers, performers and works, or have a binge-listen on shuffle, we hope that you enjoy looking back on this year!

We encourage you to leave your thoughts, most-enjoyed playlists, listening experiences and listening suggestions for others in the comment section below. And if you haven’t already, you can subscribe to our email list, submit your own work, and share the project across your favourite social media channels with anyone you know who might like to open their ears to the new.

This month we’ve brought together a number of compositions that relate to jazz or world music in varying degrees, sometimes not in the most direct or obvious way. Where are the boundaries between contemporary classical and jazz styles? What are different ways composers look to wider folk and world musics for inspiration? Many composers featured this month effortlessly weave in and out of jazz/improvisatory and classical practice, creating fascinating and eclectic bodies of work. We hear in some of the works a focus on melody and harmony, with folk tunes or a chart-based approach. Several works for sax ensembles or big band are of the toe-tapping variety while others have an adventurous contemporary flavour. Yet other works are scored for small colouristic bands or chamber ensembles. We hope you enjoy this ride through a diverse collection of sounds.